Jake Davis, 18, lives in a mobile home – a “hut” declared the Murdoch-owned Sun newspaper – on an island in the northernmost reaches of Scotland. From that unlikely outpost, Jake allegedly served as the spokesman for Lulz Security, or LulzSec, until he was arrested last week. I say allegedly, but his fellow travelers in LulzSec and Anonymous have a made a good show of conceding that it is him and have launched a campaign to “Free Topiary.” As far as I know, Davis hasn’t conceded anything, but he surely didn’t indicate any denials when he made his first court appearance on Monday. He showed up with a copy of the book “Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science.” In court, he “grimaced when [the prosecutor] mispronounced the name LulzSec as ‘Luke Sec.’” When he left the courtroom after being released on bail, he donned sunglasses and posed briefly for photographs. More

The morning started with news of stock volatility for eBay, parent company of PayPal, which was the subject of a boycott launched by hacktivist group Anonymous. Turned out that the entire stock market was jittery, mainly because the clowns in Washington were yanking America’s chain on the debt ceiling stand-off. But Anonymous was back in the news a few hours later when British authorities announced they had arrested an 18-year-old on an island in the far-northernmost reaches of the United Kingdom. They had taken down “Topiary,” the entertaining spokesman for LulzSec, which was an offshoot of Anonymous. So they had a key figure of LulzSec/Anonymous in custody. Or did they? More

The King is dead. Long live the King. LulzSec, the hackers who delighted and infuriated and apparently drew too much heat from other hackers and the Law, announced on June 25 that they were closing up shop. One kid, who may or may not have been part of LulzSec, had been arrested in the England. A woman, who may or may not have been part of LulzSec, was paid a visit by the FBI at her home in Iowa. LulzSec (conveniently?) claimed that they only intended to be in existence for 50 days. Oh, and by the way, follow @AnonymousIRC on Twitter for more of the same, LulzSec tweeted. On Tuesday, #AntiSec (the transition uses the Twitter hashtag), dumped a bunch of hacked data from the governments of Zimbabwe, Brazil, Australia, and Anguilla, as well as some internal corporate data from some media companies. Wait, Anguilla? Down with Anguilla! LulzSec is now basically acknowledged to have been an offshoot of Anonymous and whoever were the driving forces behind LulzSec have now blended back into the hacktivist collective. The day LulzSec announced they were done with their mission of LULZ, some hacker group calling themselves the A-Team, released a boatload of info on suspected LulzSec participants. As I mentioned above, the woman in Iowa was in this “dox,” or release of identifying personal data. She claims not to have done anything illegal. She just happened to be hanging out (My friend asked me to hold this weed!). Is it just a matter of time before Sabu, Kayla, and the rest of the gang get tracked down by G-Men? Or were they clever enough to establish bogus identities to get doxed leading to dead ends? As with any criminal enterprise, authorities start with the small fish, scare them into cooperating, and move their way in. But can they bust these data Robin Hoods?

Have you ever visited 4chan? Specifically, have you dared to look at the /b/ message board? It’s the birthplace of the first lolcat and other great and fun Internet memes. It’s also completely NSFW, and definitely a site some people with certain sensibilities should never visit. For one thing, you will have to wade through a lot of porn and shock imagery. And you have to be cautious not to cross the regular denizens of /b/. Just check out what happened to this poor girl and her angry father (here’s the remixed video). 4chan is also the hangout for the hacker collective Anonymous. But the site is no joke: It gets 12 million visitors a month. So how do you enjoy the fun stuff while skipping the insanity? Enter Canvas, the creation of Christopher Poole, aka “Moot,” the founder of 4chan. More